9:49 PM,
Mar. 10, 2013

CC Sabathia, above, said Mariano Rivera's retirement announcement got him to thinking that not every player gets that luxury, some just fade away.

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On the day Mariano Rivera made his major-league debut, CC Sabathia was four weeks from his 15th birthday. If Sabathia plays until he's Rivera's age, he won't retire until the end of the 2023 season.

But as Sabathia stood among his teammates at Rivera's press conference on Saturday, there was no generational gap. Even at 32 years old, and with five years left on his current contract, Sabathia was thinking about his own retirement.

"You hope that you get a chance to be able to retire and have a press conference," Sabathia said. "That's lucky. Some guys just kind of fade out. You want to be able to have a ...